A Treatise of We Feed the Hungry Inc.

HELPFUL HANDS: Don McClendon (center) and volunteers from We Feed the Hungry Inc.

In this week's news feature, "Stay Hungry," I report on St. Petersburg city officials seeking to criminalize feeding the homeless in public. At the forefront of that issue is Don McClendon, who is known to the homeless as the "Chicken Man." He has been feeding the homeless in Mirror Lake Park for nine years. He's estimated to have distributed over 400,000 meals in that time.

He's a mostly private character, and with the exception of a few St. Petersburg Times articles, keeps himself out of the limelight. In order to explain himself better, he sent me this article that explains the "who's" and "what's" of We Feed the Hungry Inc. It's reprinted in its entirety after the jump.

This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2008.